RICH COMPANY'S MAKING MILLIONS FILLING LANDFILLS WITH PLANNED OBCELESCENT PRODUC

Started by Niri Te, November 09, 2012, 01:28:30 PM

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Niri Te

 Ateyo and I worked on the "Ralph Nader" safety junk with a turn over shut off valve on a WALL MOUNTED propane heater, that would NOT allow us to turn it on, (A NEW way for the manufacturer to insure return business, by making a 10 dollar part cause a 125 dollar heater to be thrown into a LANDFILL, and replaced with a NEW one). They still get MORE business, because they usually last only two to three heating seasons, before the SAME symptoms crop up on the replacement heater, causing IT to be replaced with a new one, and the one that was replaced to join the others in the land fill.
I disabled the the three dollar part on the ten doller remote shut off, and because of oeya hona yawnetu alor, and her help, we NOW have a WORKING HEATER with ZERO money going to the manipulative manufacturer that didn't care how many of it's still serviceable heaters were rusting away in landfills, the stock holders were happy.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Tìtstewan

Kaltxì ma Niri Te

This is standard in the capitalist market economy. Watch the cell phone or a car, or, or, or...
They want the customer to bring even to buy new things, because otherwise their concept would not work.
I try to use my device as long as it is possible and if something is broken, I am trying to repair it. :)

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Niri Te

Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Tìtstewan

There is a "hardcore" example:
My lamp:
The plastic hull of my lamp was damaged, so I improvised a "new" lamp. ;D
(I use a old phone cable, the LED diode from my damaged lamp, a bamboo chopstick and 2 batteries)

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Niri Te

I LIKE it !!! You get the Gold Ecology star for the week in MY Book!!
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Tìtstewan

Oh, my previous PC which I had for almost 6 years, I repaired, repaired, repaired and is still running. ;D
Only graphics cards I had to buy new. (a destroyed chip I can't repair)

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Niri Te

 My airplane was built in 1940. It has been completely taken down to it's bare frame, and every single part of it's airframe inspected, with the bad,or even questionable parts replaced with parts of superior materials, making the airframe both stronger, and lighter than before. The engine was likewise completely disassembled, inspected, and rebuilt, gaining ten horsepower in the process. It was then recovered in a totally new system making the aircraft's skin many times stronger, and more impervious to chemical attack by pollution than the original cloth.

Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Tìtstewan

Wow, that was a really hard work! :o
But to have an airplane would be great! :D

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`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Aircraft are one place where 'planned obsolescence' is not generally practiced, and operations like Niri Te described are commonplace.

A friend of mine who was a jet fighter mechanic told me about a fighter he used to work on (an F-4 I think, but I am not sure) he could never get the ailerons to perfectly balance on. This plane was eventually sold to a foreign government. They went to the trouble to replace the main spar (which was slightly bent) to correct the balance problem. I suspect this plane is still flying today.

The planned obsolescence problem is especially bad with modern electronics. I have a Quadruplex videotape machine in my living room, built circa 1965. Most electronic parts to maintain this machine (mechanical parts are a different story!) are still readily available, including the few integrated circuits used in the machine. I also have an early digital VTR, an Ampex VPR300, circa 1988. Some of the chips in it were obsolete before the first machine rolled off the assembly line. This is even more true of computer-based stuff. It is hard to ger replacement disk drives to replace drives that were state-of-the-art four years ago. This is forcing us to replace hardware that is only a few years old. Most broadcaster expect a piece of equipment to last 10 to 20 years. Now we are lucky if we can get 8 years of life. Worse yet, some manufacturers won't even talk to you about their equipment if it more than a few years old. None of you here probably own anything made by them, but Harmonic brand stuff is the worst. They make some of the best encoders and servers in the world, yet their support is the very worst in the world. If we could switch to another brand, we would.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Tìtstewan

Well, the problem is there now. The big question is what can we do about it?
There are different solution approaches, but it will certainly fail in the implementation. Very many powerful corporations will certainly have their finger in the game to prevent it.

My opinion:
Latest when the resources are completely exhausted on this planet, then people will realize that the planned obsolescence has 'destroyed' their future.

There are a good documentation:

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Tsmuktengan

The planned obsolescence product is an abuse of both liberal systems (this is not only reproducible in capitalist systems) and, for a huge part, of the lack of education and awareness of people, who don't try to understand why something suddenly may not work anymore.

We have heaters in our country side house. This house costs us a lot of money and is hard to heat, so we carefully choose our appliances. Nowhere, since the last 10 years I've followed the changes in the house, I have seen programmed obsolescence. We have both recent and old appliances, and those that broke/died due to many years of servicing and could just not be easily repair... or were just eating too much energy (like our former heating system which used much more petrol than before).

In many ways, people are abused by companies for minor repairs because they don't mind trying to think about how it can work again. Also, many lamps are thrown away because the fuse just went dead, and replacing it would have made it work again.

Please don't blame Capitalism/Economy/liberal stuff for this, it isn't the root of the issue. Blame the companies who practice this. Keep in mind our economies allow you to change of manufacturer that would be more honest with the customers and environment. There are also ways to sue manufacturer who practice programmed obsolescence, as this is an abusive practice.


`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

The best way to 'sue' companies that practice too much 'planned obsolescence' is to not buy their products.

A lot of times, though, manufacturers need to look at the cost of the parts they are using to build a product. A 1 cent savings adds up to a lot of cost savings if you manufacture a million of something. For instance, think of a resistor, a very common electronic component. A manufacturer has the choice of using everything from a 2 cent carbon film resistor, to a four dollar metal film resistor in an evacuated glass capsule. A satellite might require the latter part because it has an expected lifetime on the order of hundreds of years, and it cannot be economically replaced in service. But a consumer product might, for reasons other than the quality of the resistors (such as mechanical wear and tear) last only 10 years. This justifies the use of a less expensive but shorter-lived resistor. Most of the time, manufacturers get these trade-off guesses right, but not always.

Sometimes, a device fails because of something totally overlooked by the designers. This is a problem that companies try to strenuously avoid, because early failure is very costly. But this happens, and more often than we expect. I have had it happen to me. I work in a field where high reliability and redundant electronics are the norm (broadcasting), so everything I scratch-build or install has to be up to the same standards.

One note about the lamp and the fuse. For people not living in certain parts of the world, understand that many countries require the power plugs of plug-in products to be fused in the plug. A lot of people don't understand electricity, or are afraid of it. As a result, they don't know how to maintain their product, and just replace it when it fails.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Tsmuktengan

You are right on every point you explain here.

Yet, this does not excuse planned obsolescence. If you have to rely on such a practice to make profit in your company, then this means there is a serious issue in the way the company's finance are managed and calculated. Freedom of entrepreneurship (aka liberalism) does not mean you should rely on such bad practices, that I think are not pointed out enough.


Seze Mune

For a different POV, check this out...the actual dynamics can be found in ANY market system, capitalistic or not.  There are checks and balances.  If you had a totalitarian system, you'd be forced to take whatever you were offered and you wouldn't have the market dynamics to force change for the better.

Capitalism isn't perfect.  The perfect human system has never been devised.  But what OTHER system would you RATHER have?  You can shoot the horse because he doesn't trot perfectly, but then you have to ride a donkey, an ox or an elephant.  Good luck with those, too.

"When I was a child in the 60's some of the adults in my extended family would complain about "planned obsolescence" in cars coming out of Detroit. "One uncle, in particular, would get furious about what he thought was a conspiracy by the automotive industry. He accused them of deliberately producing cars that would start to have lots of problems (failing parts, deteriorating materials, increased maintenance requirements, etc.) around 2-3 years after purchase, just in time for the release of a newly upgraded model of that car.

"This blaming of the good for being good came about because of a reversal of understanding cause and effect, due to a lack of understanding of both product development and markets. It is always the case that a product could be designed to be better for some given feature (subject to the limits of scientific understanding at the time) for either a higher price or a by taking longer to get the product to market (to allow exploration of more design options). In complex products (cars, iPads) product innovation can take so many forms - component device design, materials, product design, software, design, fabrication and production methods, ownership and service options (lease/buy, extended warranties) - all of which could lead to innovation in product features, performance, durability, cost, ease of use, etc., which, in turn, lead to potential changes in the relationship between a given product and its owner's values, the source of motivation for purchases.

"As an engineer, I blame poor understanding of the process of trade-offs in creation of products - assessment of and selection among alternative directions, at every level of the process from concept to offerings in the marketplace. A common tongue-in-cheek lament among engineers captures the tension between these influences: "Faster, better, cheaper. Pick two." Engineers can more easily get a product to market faster with either better performance or lower cost (not both), or develop a better product faster (at a higher price point), but doing all three (faster, better and cheaper) is hard - and a hallmark of excellence in innovation. As Dr. Brook points out a company deliberately trying for "planned obsolescence" - choosing "faster, cheaper" as a strategy - will eventually get trumped by the company that chooses "better, cheaper." The company that succeeds at "faster, better, cheaper" will transform the market."

Niri Te

Ma Seze,
I think that this will be the first time that we have a disagreement.  The catalytic propane heater that brought abuut this post of mine,  would work perfectly,  except for this one little part that is part of the "safety manded" stuff that is thrown onto these things. This part probably cost all of about three dollars to make,  it ALWAYS FAILS,  every year,  or every OTHER year,  without it working properly,  you will have NO HEAT,  and it is the ONLY part on the heater that you CANNOT get a replacement part for,  requiring most people that don't possess my inventive spirit to just throw the old one away,  and buy a new one. I have found a way around the part,  and the heater works flawlessly. I work the same kind of magic with old cars WITHOUT TAKING THEM TO THE RIP-OFF DEALER.
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Seze Mune

I'm not sure where the disagreement is, if we have one.  I don't imagine you would choose to live under socialistic, marxist, fascist or totalitarian type systems, so I have a sense that while you regard capitalism as flawed, that would still be your system of choice.  If that's true, then we still agree.  If you think a different system out there has been demonstrated as better, I'd be glad to hear about it.

It's my sense that it's trendy to bash 'the capitalists' when one isn't very familiar with the true dynamics of the system, especially in comparison to what else is out there.

Anyone who really has a grasp on this and can explain why any other given system has greater systemic, sustainable benefits for the greatest number of people - heck, I'm willing to listen.

Niri Te

 OK ma tsmuke, I'm up at 03:25 and I am waiting for the coffee to get hot, but here goes. Capitalism is the best system that we have on the planet, BUT it has the tendency to reward USURY if not subject to some limits on what is acceptable under it's banner.
(Take a look at Child labor in the 18 and very early 19 hundreds, and the laws that had to be passed to stop it).  A case in point, is the way that the overwhelming percentage of residents in the Dell City, Texas are treated by most of the merchants, and ranchers in the area. You have three classes out here, the merchants and ranchers, all of which are pretty well off, even by National standards, and who make up 2 to 3 percent of the population of the town, and almost everyone else, mostly either completely unable to speak English, or very limited in it's use, who, if they own a vehicle, have an old, barely running, early seventies something large American car, that gets somewhere around 10 MPG. These people, who make up about 80 to 85 percent of the town, get paid almost nothing by the Ranchers that they work for, and have ZERO chance at being able to make the 170 mile round trip to shop in El Paso, in their cars of highly questionable reliability. As a result, the price of gasoline  is between 35, and 50 cents a gallon higher than in El Paso, and the price of groceries in the two little convenience stores is DOUBLE the price of what is charged in El Paso. There is NO WAY IN HELL, that the price difference is due solely to transportation costs, as the business owners like to tell the poor people in Dell City, this is late 18 hundreds "Company Store" style usury, nothing more.
The third group of people in that town, making up 10 to 12 percent, are the skilled, English fluent, people that work for the Power and Phone Companies, and own pretty new vehicles, and can afford to go into El Paso several times a month to go shopping, and can afford (barely) to fill up their cars at the two gas stations in town, the ONLY ones for 80 miles.
There is another group, that does not live in the town, but is scattered out in the high desert about twenty miles away from it. We are the ones that bought 10 to 200 acre parcels of land, are all Retired Military, and do almost all of our shopping in El Paso, or on the Base at Ft. Bliss, to include loading up the trailers behind our Pickup Trucks with a hundred gallons or so of cheaper gasoline, when we go into El Paso to pick up our Military. or Veteran's Administration Checks every month.
The people in Dell City HATE us as a group, for we represent the winds of change, blowing into their little town.
It is the type of mentality that the ranchers and merchants of Dell City practice, that certain industries in America also hold dear, and it is what I object strongly to. When you build a 120 dollar propane fired space heater, a NEEDED, not discretionary item in the winter out here, and you build one part on that heater that will only last one or two heating seasons, and you do NOT  offer a replacement part, but force the public to buy another heater with the same designed in flaw, THAT, in my opinion, is USURY, and should be illegal.
Because of my mechanical abilities, HELL, I work on our AIRPLANES for fun, I can throw out the offending part in a manner that does NOT compromise Safety, something the overwhelming majority of people in Dell City could NOT do, and that lack of knowledge makes them the LEGAL, though NOT MORAL cash crop of unscrupulous Companies looking for as much money as they can turn, any way that they can turn it.
THAT is what I was commenting on, ma tsmuke.
ta Niri Tawa
Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi

Seze Mune

I believe I understand, ma tsmuke, and you have justifiable anger and frustration with what happened.  Some have been equating that with capitalism, and I think that's a bogus equation.  Opportunism exists everywhere and at all times and it most certainly isn't exclusive to, nor birthed by, any particular economic system.

I'd like to go into this more, but at the moment I'm 'covered up' as they say in Tennessee.  If I have a chance later today, I will post more.

Tìtstewan

Good example, ma Niri Te.
Here in Europe, it is not really different. In the villages and small towns relatively isolated the prices for products in comparison with those in the major cities are high. And here, I doubt that these are only the transportation costs. Here in Germany it is not so extreme that the people in the villages spend the extra time to drive in the city for every little thing. Here one should not forget that a liter of petrol costs 1.25 € and it does not matter what gas station it is, because the price difference is no more than 0.10 € per liter here - so it's not worth a long drive, unless you intend to make a bulk purchase.
But how the price difference between the cities and the villages comes about?
Answer:
The business must be worthwhile. The companies must have a minimum turnover, and if this is not reached, the store will close. In a village there are not enough customers to sells products like big city prices, because it is not profitable. So what makes for the business to be profitable in a village? Properly, it will increase the prices.
I'm doing an internship with a company that have a canteen, which is owned by another company. This canteen have to create a turnover of at least € 60 per day to can exsist there as a canteen.

Sorry for my bad english. :-[

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Niri Te

Tokx alu tawtute, Tirea Le Na'vi